A lot of this is the Bystander Effect/Bystander Apathy in play. Either people will assume that someone else will do something so they don't have to or they just don't want to get involved. Or still, you want to do something but since other people aren't doing anything about it, you don't do anything about it. The people that were laughing about it are outright jerks though.
It's pretty well established by now that in the 'real world' kindness such as this is a rarity. So pointing out things like "wow the rest of those guys are jerks" doesn't really do much good for anyone, aside from a potential ego-boost to anyone who happens to say it because they know that they aren't that cold. Taking a more positive view at this, thinking that perhaps this is just a tool to educate that public that there are people out there that need help. What I am trying to get at is, if someone watches this and all they think about (or in this case mention) is: That won't really do anything at all. From what I've experienced with people, positive motivation is far more powerful than negative. Taking in just how "bad" some people are only casts judgement on them. It probably doesn't lead you to go out and make a difference, which from what I can understand, is the whole point of this video.
What I got out of it was completely different. To me, the video seemed to be pointing out that people tend to only care about others who are on or above their "level." It's a social disease that needs to be cured, and hopefully videos like this that bring attention to it can be that cure someday.
Well, from what I learned living in Las Vegas, sometimes people can take an advantage of your kindness. Like if you give a homeless man say like a $10, he/she could tip off someone and have an accomplice come rob you. Or like for instance with Elizabeth Smart, her father offered a homeless man a job and invited the stranger to their house to work on their roof, and then the homeless man came back later and kidnapped Elizabeth from her own room. Or on a lighter note, some people will dress as the homeless, pan-handle, and go back to a fancy house with plenty of food and the comforts of modern life. Or sometimes people are afraid they'll take the kind act and enforce it with something bad, like buying drugs or booze instead of a meal or medical supplies. I think people in general are just afraid of the "What if this goes badly" factor, because our world is so messed up and cruel. Humans start learning and adapting to their environment so some not helping may be a sense of survival or trying to protect themselves from an "unseen evil". Or people could simply be jerks and be turning a blind eye. Or someone is truly suffering and will accept with help with no dishonesty. *Shrugs shoulders*
The thing is, anybody who has actually 'seen' a homeless person already knows how bad this stuff is. Which is more people than you might think. People just tend to not care.
We had that guy in France, a comedian, Coluche. Pretty huge here. He presented himself as an official contestant to the French presidency on the basis that it was intolerable in this day and age to still not give food, water and a shelter as a basic minimum to the needy. He meant it as a joke and a political statement, but you know what ? I think he was just popular enough that people would have voted for that otherwise utterly unqualified buffoon. We' ll never know for sure, the "actual" candidates feared him too and I can easily wager they mustered some pressure his way. I haven' t checked myself, but I' m told Coluche' s name can be seen written in Captain America' s "list of the things of the past to get a brush on" in The Winter Soldier, among a bunch of other French stuff. Well anyway, he desisted the presidential race and settled for organizing a yearly concert with famous artists to finance a meal delivery service for the homeless and the poor. Les restaurants du coeur. It' s been going on for, idk, over 30 years ? The organization does face some corruption problems here and there and its singers get a lot of flack for the free "nice" exposition they get out of it, but in the end it does deliver a lot of meals. Meh, we all know how allergic good ol' murica is to anything that could remotely be labeled as socialist though, don' t we ?
Exactly. Most people see themselves as being on a "higher level" than than the homeless and that's why they don't care, even if they know what's wrong with the fact that they don't care. I know this because I am guilty of it just because of how often I'm forced to fall into line with other people. Disclaimer: This kind of turned into a rant, so it might not accurately describe how I feel about these issues. It's just sort of the gist of it and I don't feel like completely rewriting it. Also, I'm being somewhat Americentric here. I understand that some of the things I say may not apply to other parts of the world. What it comes down to is that, with few exceptions, the rich are only able to care about the rich, the middle are only able to care about the middle and the rich, but only the homeless have the capacity to care about everybody (though I'm not saying that all homeless do care about everybody) and that's just a little bit sad. Some of the best experiences I've had with strangers have been with homeless who surely understood that I'm in a more privileged position than they are and still gave me help that they felt I needed. This is why I feel so strongly that solving classism needs to be the top priority for anybody who wants true social equality. Everything else is just a distraction and needs to be done away with, at least until classism is solved for good.
Only problem I have with this is assuming certain 'financial classes' only care about certain 'financial classes'. I've dumped a tremendous amount of money into making sure one of my friends (who is homeless half the time) is okay. I have more money than he does, yet we both have each other's back.
That's why I mentioned that there are a few exceptions. I'm not just some classist masquerading as a class activist. Obviously not all rich people care only about rich people. Some of them came from poverty themselves and others just have kind hearts. Even so, it's an undeniable fact that it's usually easier to simply not care about those on a lower level, so that's what most people do.
